I think the idea is to keep the politics out of Colonia. This actually works out well for the Earth Defense Fleet(EDF). As EDF we are a Federation faction but several months ago we spun up the Earth Expeditionary Fleet (EEF) as an exploration-centric offshoot of EDF. Where EDF is very pro-Federation and involved in power play EEF has stated since it's inception that we are focused on COOPERATIVE game play not COMPETITIVE game play.

Colonia is the perfect place for EEF: surrounded by unexplored space and other players who are unified in cooperation.

I've signed the Earth Expeditionary Fleet up for a Visa and I'm looking forward to the process of colonization!

We applied via that very same avenue as soon as we became aware of the new inhabited systems around Colonia that popped up along with the release of 2.2, and I'm sure that your group and ours weren't the only ones. That was always a long shot (but worth a try ).

We applied via that very same avenue as soon as we became aware of the new inhabited systems around Colonia that popped up along with the release of 2.2, and I'm sure that your group and ours weren't the only ones. That was always a long shot (but worth a try ).

Existing player factions (this is all about player factions, not Powerplay) will be welcome to apply to establish a "branch office" in Colonia, but the branch office will need to be staffed, so some members of the faction will need to emigrate to Colonia. So you need to be serious about wanting to move out there. The Community Goals are presumably about proving you have that commitment, so Colonia gets the factions that display the highest level of commitment.

Edit: However, this application process appears to be for new factions only!

Have to agree to this one I thought there where the main faction out there.
The plan for me to get back out there was to do something meaning full with the BSG, and watch things grow. Be nice to be able to pledge to one to of the NPC factions already there.

Also Do we know how many are going to be let in? I know the BSG isn't perfect but with player factions coming into the mix wont that be another spanner in the works.

Go ahead and do it, then - the only difference between an NPC faction and a player faction is that for a player faction someone other than Frontier gets to pick the name and type. Even better, your faction is already there so you don't need to win a CG to start building it up.

I think, somehow, the Federation, Empire and Alliance might just laugh at a region with fewer than ten orbital stations and a bunch of surface bases calling itself a superpower. Someday, perhaps, but not today.

That's true of most of the existing NPC factions, though there are a bunch of Anarchy factions which very definitely could start war/civil war states with each other or with the cooperative factions - but I don't see anything in the announcement which makes it likely that all player factions would have to be either cooperative or anarchy, and neither are particularly common types for existing player factions.

I think, somehow, the Federation, Empire and Alliance might just laugh at a region with fewer than ten orbital stations and a bunch of surface bases calling itself a superpower. Someday, perhaps, but not today.

That might be the case but the area is growing fast and now we're talking about, what? Adding 10 new factions/surface bases followed by three more every month? That is potentially 36 newly inhabited systems per year.

Including the Colonia system itself we've already got 15 systems (I'm including the stations set up along the route to Jaques). After the first wave a player minor factions we'll have 25. After one year of potentially adding three new minor factions per month we'll have potentially 61 inhabited systems. 61 systems that, if left independent, will be unable to fend off an invasion by one of the Big Three superpowers in the event that something happens akin to the recent trouble in Maia. Stand together, I say.

I think the new faction thing is for the sake of the database and the BGS - so that you don't have two instances of your faction separated by 12-16 hours of travel time that are affecting each other's states, not that an existing player group can't apply to have a faction out there. It's like all the Emperor Will factions having their system name tacked on to keep them as separate BGS entities.